Passenger finds beetle larva in airline meal

A woman on a Jetstar flight from Singapore to Australia last week found a beetle larva in her Jetstar in-flight meal.

Serena Chen asked for a refund but was told she would have to apply for one online. After some discussion she was offered a replacement meal and her money was refunded.

Serena was eating her seafood nasi lemak when the beetle larva putin an appearance. The 28 year-old university research assistant was told to lay a complaint online. She said “I was told I had to wait five to 10 days for a response,” she said. “I didn’t think that was good enough and emailed them and Jetstar Asia contacted me, wanting me to email the picture.”

Jetstar says it has withdrawn the meal from its menus and apologised to Serena. “Obviously this is an incident which has to do with our caterers,” a spokeswoman said

“It’s an isolated case and it’s highly unlikely it’s a maggot. It’s more likely to be a rice worm.” Well thats ok then rice worms rock.

Professor Ian Dadour, director of the Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Western Australia, confirmed that the bug was a beetle larva, although he could not be sure of the species.

“If it was packaged in the food it would be dead and would have come from the vegetable matter. It could have been in the rice, too.” he said.

“It’s probably the best bit of protein in that meal.” Well that is cool – extra protein. Jetstar were only offering a balanced diet.